A blog about discussions on various notable hoaxes that had sprang up over the centuries and why in the age of the Internet / Web 2.0 it still takes time and effort to confirm a hoax as such if it occurs.

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Axolotl Roadkill: 21st Century Literary Hoax?

Touted as a wunderkinder’s masterpiece of 2010, is Helene Hegemann’s Axolotl Roadkill nothing more than a 21st Century cut and paste literary hoax?

By: Ringo Bones

Surprise, surprise it turns out that the wunderkinder literary masterpiece of 2010 turned out to be nothing more than just another case of web 2.0-era cut and paste plagiarism, but it took awhile for the “hoax” to unravel. Surprising still is that there are still people who read books that managed to point this out in our already cynical “I don’t have the time to read a book” society of today. Well, at least burning books is better than not reading them. But why should we care?

German wunderkind novelist Helene Hegemann first gained the notice of the literary world when she made the screenplay for Torpedo before her Axolotl Roadkill got published and circulated back in the start of 2010. Axolotl Roadkill was accused of being a plagiaristic rip-off after researchers uncovered that Helene Hegemann “stole” 20 passages word-for-word from a blog novel written and posted by an on-line author who goes by the name Strobo. After being weaned on 21st Century-era Napsterization, do young people today still respect the intellectual property of others?

It seems like Axolotl Roadkill went from a wunderkinder literary masterpiece to a cut-and-paste understatement almost overnight after how the literary sensation of 2010 plagiarized another work was pointed out by researchers. The word-of-mouth reviews of Axolotl Roadkill tells of a work supposedly in tune to the 13 to 18 demographic as fairly complex philosophical bunch rather than being as previously typecasted by Hollywood - as merely passive capitalist consumers. Too bad, it has just become a mere plagiaristic dribble and a literary hoax.